Bruno Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez, is an Album of the Year Grammy winner and there are a number of people out there that simply don’t think he deserves it. Not only are people displeased that Prince never even held that title, but some are calling Bruno a “cultural appropriator.” A YouTube account called The Grapevine sees a two-part video of different people discussing Bruno and his “racial ambiguity” and profiting off Black culture when he isn’t Black.
“What Bruno Mars does, is he takes pre-existing work and he just completely, word-for-word recreates it, extrapolates it,” YouTuber Sensei Aishitemasu said. “He does not create it, he does not improve upon it, he does not make it better. He’s a karaoke singer, he’s a wedding singer, he’s the person you hire to do Michael Jackson and Prince covers. Yet Bruno Mars has an Album of the Year Grammy and Prince never won an Album of the Year Grammy.”
Maybe it was the YouTube video or maybe people have been talking about this for some time, but the Twitterverse seems to also have a lot to say about Bruno and his music-making habits. Check out some reactions below. What do you guys think? Is there some truth to these accusations? FACTS OR REACHING?
so i see today’s bruno mars/mimicry/appropriation conversation and i’ve got a free thinkpiece for someone who likes writing more than i do…
aside from skin color, the difference between what bruno does on 24k and donald glover on “awaken…” is?
— El Flaco (@bomani_jones) March 9, 2018
People can’t complain about Bruno Mars “appropriating Black music”, when it’s Black people who abandoned the old school R&B/funk genre that we created. We have a bad habit of that. Then we won’t find it relevant until white people think it’s relevant
— Tariq Nasheed (@tariqnasheed) March 9, 2018
So do y'all ever read the articles where Bruno Mars credits black artists completely and acknowledges his privilege or do you just decide to tweet assumptions about this man all day? Asking for a friend.
— morgs 😛 (@hotbeansmorgan) March 9, 2018
Take that same energy you have to be mad at Bruno Mars and bring it over to Tekashi, Post Malone, Lil Pump, etc
— hey football head (@nikesonmyTWEET) March 9, 2018
Bruno Mars is a “culture vulture”, but a guy from Canada comes out with caribbean singles and a fake accent, and yall danced to it and made it a #1 single. I guess culture vultures are based on fandom.
— SC: GivinGameO (@InternationalO) March 9, 2018
